There are many cases of patients that are either physically incapable of maneuvering a wheel chair or are mentally irresponsible in the maneuvering of a wheel chair. It is not feasible for a facility such as a hospital, a nursing home, or the like which care for a large number of such patients, to have an attendant for each of these wheel chair-bound patients. (The term wheel chair is used herein to encompass geriatric chairs and the like as well as the wheeled chair commonly referred to as a "wheel chair.")
To enable a few attendants to care for a much greater number of patients, it is a common practice to place the patients in common areas such as a hall or corridor, a recreation room, dining hall and the like. The activity that takes place in such common areas is generally considered by the patients as a break from the monotony of being confined to one's bed.
Whereas patients generally enjoy the activity, the hallway in particular is obviously the pathway for numerous transportation needs including emergency evacuation needs. Hospital rules cannot permit the hallways to become a safety hazard with wheel chairs randomly strewn along the hallway. Positioning the wheel chairs along the wall of a hallway will clear a pathway and satisfy most safety concerns except that the wheel chair cannot be expected to remain along the wall without restraint. However, restraining the wheel chairs creates a further safety problem. In a catastrophe, e.g. a fire, the patients in wheel chairs must be moved quickly and a typical restraint can take precious seconds to release. Such typical restraints are thus unacceptable. The same concern, although perhaps not to the same degree, exists for other common areas as well.
Another problem that arises concerns cost. Hallway activity for wheel chair patients is a low priority concern, and most austere-minded medical-care budgets do not allow for items such as quick-release hallway restraints for wheel chairs. Thus a further concern of the present invention is its cost.